INITIATIVES

Learn about our current projects

The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough women from which to choose for national security positions, the problem is that hiring managers—often men—lack diversity in their own networks, and leaders fail to make gender diversity a top priority. With your support, LCWINS will engage our robust networks to help organizations and political campaigns develop effective processes to identify, recruit, hire and retain talented women candidates for all appointed positions in national security.

To further this effort, we are asking major 2020 Presidential campaigns to pledge that, if elected, they will seek gender parity in their national security appointments. In practice that means candidates would promise that: ‍

Rigorous standards will be used to ensure diverse candidate pools for all senior positions;

No senior positions will be filled until a genuinely diverse candidate pool was considered;

Hiring recommendations will be evaluated based in part on whether they are contributing to diverse teams; and

Candidates will not be viewed less favorably due to breaks in employment or past part-time work due to family obligations.

As its first project, LCWINS has developed a Think Tank Gender Scorecard. Drawing on their years of experience in the national security workforce, think tank management, and gender diversity, members proposed a comprehensive set of standards for think tanks to meet that get to the heart of building and sustaining a gender inclusive workforce. Funding for an Executive Director will allow the group to launch our Think Tank Gender Scorecard as a tool for benchmarking, educating, and advocating with these institutions to improve their gender inclusion.

Think tanks are an important focus for our effort, because their impact extends beyond their institutions to the policy ecosystem at large. They produce ideas for change – and without diverse talent, they cannot generate the best solutions to complex national security challenges. They supply witnesses and briefers for congressional work on foreign policy. They are a major source for senior government positions, and so can drive gender inclusion in national security leadership. Finally, they supply the expert analysts who appear in major media addressing national security and foreign policy questions – thereby shaping the public’s vision of an authoritative national security figure.

Think Tank Gender Scorecard. Think tanks’ impact extend to the policy ecosystem. They produce ideas for change – and without diverse talent, they cannot generate the best solutions to complex national security challenges. They supply witnesses and briefers for congressional work on foreign policy. They are a major source for senior government positions, and so can drive gender inclusion in national security leadership. Finally, they supply the expert analysts who appear in major media addressing national security and foreign policy questions – thereby shaping the public’s vision of an authoritative national security figure.

LCWINS will launch this Scorecard as a tool for benchmarking, educating, and advocating with thinktanks to improve their gender inclusion. Examples of specific measurements include percentage of women in senior leadership positions and availability of paid leave programs.

The 116th Congress boasts historic numbers of women including a range of women with backgrounds in national security. With your support, LCWINS can help them to succeed by providing curated, coordinated, and valuable briefings and initiatives on a wide range of national security topics to help ensure these women are supported and welcomed by other senior women experts in Washington.